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Retail Top 100 2012, No. 52: High-tech dressing rooms

August 14, 2012

Shoppers at San Francisco's Industrie Denim no longer need to venture outside the fitting room to ask friends (or strangers) if the jeans they're trying on make their butts look big. Nor do they have to take anyone else's word for it. They can see for themselves using the closed-circuit "Booty Cams" installed in the retailer's dressing rooms. (Store manager Rob Jolin is quick to assure shoppers that the process is completely private.) Some of luxury retailer Prada's dressing rooms employ plasma mirrors similar to the Booty Cams, as well as doors that go from opaque to trans-parent. A growing number of clothing retailers are using such gee-whiz technology to entice customers into trying on clothes and get them excited about shopping. Consumer psychologist, Kit Yarrow, said the high-tech dressing-room tools are as much about customer assistance as they are marketing. "What it tells consumers," she says, "is that a store is trying and they're thinking."

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